“The spirit of butchery,” relates Bancroft, “was aroused. Within the fort, watch was kept day and night. After a lapse of two days, the threatened attack was made. Midst savage yells, a shower of musket balls came pattering down upon the fort, riddling the stockades and rattling on the roofs. Instantly, Finlayson shouted his order that not a shot was to be returned.... The savages continued their fire ... then rested from the waste of ammunition.... Then the commander (Finlayson) appeared ... and beckoned (the chief).... ‘What would you do?’ exclaimed Finlayson. ‘What evil would you bring upon yourselves! Know you that with one motion of my finger I could blow you all into the bay? And I will do it! See your houses yonder!’ “Instantly, a nine-pounder belched forth with astounding noise, tearing to splinters the cedar lodge. “Finlayson had ordered his interpreter to run to the lodges and warn the inmates to instant flight. Hence no damage was done save shivering to splinters some pine slabs.” The results were what one might expect. The Indians sued for peace, and paid full meed in furs for the slaughtered cattle. It may be added here as a sample of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s economy in detail--that Fort Victoria was built without the driving of a single nail. Wooden pegs were used. After the relinquishment of Oregon, the old Okanogan-Kamloops trail could be no longer used. Anderson of Fort Alexandria in New Caledonia succeeded in 1845-46 in finding and cutting a new trail down the Fraser to Langley and Victoria. This was the trail that later developed into the famous Cariboo Road of the miners and of which ruins may still be seen clinging to the precipices above the Fraser like basket work, the strands of the basket bridges being huge cedar logs mortised in places for a depth of hundreds of feet. Except where the embankment has crumbled beneath the timber work, Anderson’s old fur trail is still used to enter Cariboo. From 1846, one Joseph McKay becomes chief clerk under Chief Factor Douglas of Victoria. Indians brought first word of the famous coal beds of North Vancouver Island. Hence the building of Fort Rupert on Beaver Harbor in ’43. And now occurs the fine play of the Company’s rare diplomacy. Rumors of gold in California are arousing the fever that is to result in the pell-mell stampede of the famous ’49. At any time, similar discoveries may bring a stampede to the North. No one knew better than the Company those Indian legends of hidden minerals in the Rockies, and when colonists came there would be an end to the fur trade. Did the Company, then--as is often charged--conceal knowledge of precious minerals in its territory? Not at all. It simply let the legends slumber. Its business was not mining. It was fur trading, and the two were utterly hostile.